Tuesday, October 17, 2017

thepiratebay.se domain has expired | UNLIMITED | CMU

One of the domain names most famously associated with the always controversial Pirate Bay – thepiratebay.se – has expired, seemingly because a court order has prevented the piracy platform from renewing it.

The Pirate Bay has used an assortment of domain names over the years. Initially thepiratebay.org was the primary domain. But in 2012, fearing that the US authorities might try to seize that address, it switched to thepiratebay.se, ie a Swedish domain for a Swedish website.

Then, in 2013, Swedish authorities launched action to try to seize the piracy site’s .se domain, so Team Pirate Bay switched to another alternative. Which began a mini tour around the world as the piracy platform switched allegiances to different domain registries, only to have the entertainment industry begin legal proceedings to try and block those new domains, resulting in the Bay jumped over to yet another address.

Ironically, while all that was happening, both .org and .se remained active, and after a flurry of domain hopping, The Pirate Bay decided to make the latter its main address once again. This lasted until renewed legal efforts by the authorities in Sweden prompted the piracy set-up to announce that it was again making its original domain, thepiratebay.org, its flagship address.

Those attempts by the Swedish authorities to block thepiratebay.se have ended up being very long drawn out indeed, and are still pending. However, as part of those ongoing efforts the country’s Supreme Court locked the domain, to stop anyone from transferring or claiming it while legal proceedings were ongoing.

It’s Torrentfreak that spotted that the Pirate Bay’s .se domain has now expired, as domains eventually do if they are not renewed with the relevant registry. It’s thought that, with the domain being locked, Team TPB probably couldn’t initiate the renewal process. Which means the famous URL no longer forwards users to the file-sharing hub.

Of course, in many countries internet service providers are forced to block users from accessing URLs associated with The Pirate Bay. Though there are an assortment of ways to circumvent those blockades, which means that web-savvy file-sharers can usually find their favourite piracy platform pretty easily, oblivious of what specific domains are operational.

It’s still something of an end of an era. It remains to be seen what final decision the Swedish Supreme Court makes about the long term future of the .se domain.